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Fame Is Fun, Money Is Useful, Celebrity Can Be Exciting, But Finally Life Is About Optimal Well-being And How We Achieve That In Dominator Culture, In A Greedy Culture, In A Culture That Uses So Much Of The World’s Resources. How Do Men And Women, Boys And Girls, Live Lives Of Compassion, Justice And Love? And I Think That’s The Visionary Challenge For Feminism And All Other Progressive Movements For Social Change.

-Bell Hooks

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Fame Is Fun, Money

Bell Hooks

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Fame Is Fun, Money Is Useful, Celebrity Can Be Exciting, But Finally Life Is About Optimal Well-being And How We Achieve That In Dominator Culture, In A Greedy Culture, In A Culture That Uses So Much Of The World’s Resources. How Do Men And Women, Boys And Girls, Live Lives Of Compassion, Justice And Love? And I Think That’s The Visionary Challenge For Feminism And All Other Progressive Movements For Social Change.

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Why Is It That Many Contemporary Male Thinkers, Especially Men Of Color, Repudiate The Imperialist Legacy Of Columbus But Affirm Dimensions Of That Legacy By Their Refusal To Repudiate Patriarchy?

If We Move Away From Either/or Thinking, And If We Think, Okay, Every Day Of My Life That I Walk Out Of My House I Am A Combination Of Race, Gender, Class, Sexual Preference And Religion Or What Have You, What Gets Foregrounded?

When I Think About The Auto-industry And How It Was One Of The Industries That Brought All Of These Black Men From The South To Michigan And Other Places To Make More Money Than They Could Ever Make In The Cotton Fields Or The Agricultural World Of The South... What's Happening Now Is All Of That Is Closing Down, And We Know That It's Going To Reopen In Southern Places, Focusing On Mexican And Other Migrant Workers To Come And Work Cheaply And Get None Of The Benefits.

You Must Have Courage To Love, You Have To Have A Profound Will To Do What Is Right To Love, And It Does Not Come Easy.

Genuine Love Is Rarely An Emotional Space Where Needs Are Instantly Gratified. To Know Love We Have To Invest Time And Commitment...'dreaming That Love Will Save Us, Solve All Our Problems Or Provide A Steady State Of Bliss Or Security Only Keeps Us Stuck In Wishful Fantasy, Undermining The Real Power Of The Love -- Which Is To Transform Us.' Many People Want Love To Function Like A Drug, Giving Them An Immediate And Sustained High. They Want To Do Nothing, Just Passively Receive The Good Feeling.

The Process Begins With The Individual Woman’s Acceptance That American Women, Without Exception, Are Socialized To Be Racist, Classist And Sexist, In Varying Degrees, And That Labeling Ourselves Feminists Does Not Change The Fact That We Must Consciously Work To Rid Ourselves Of The Legacy Of Negative Socialization.

The Classroom, With All Its Limitations, Remains A Location Of Possibility. In That Field Of Possibility We Have The Opportunity To Labor For Freedom, To Demand Of Ourselves And Our Comrades, An Openness Of Mind And Heart That Allows Us To Face Reality Even As We Collectively Imagine Ways To Move Beyond Boundaries, To Transgress. This Is Education As The Practice Of Freedom.

Feminist Thinking Teaches Us All, Especially, How To Love Justice And Freedom In Ways That Foster And Affirm Life.

Hip-hop Is Diverse. But The White, Capitalist Producers And Distributors Of Hip-hop Are Most Interested In The Hip-hip That Is Misogynist, That Is Black-hating, That Is Pugilistic, That Is To Say All About Fighting And War And Killing And Gangsterism.

If Any Female Feels She Need Anything Beyond Herself To Legitimate And Validate Her Existence, She Is Already Giving Away Her Power To Be Self-defining, Her Agency.

Professors Rarely Speak Of The Place Of Eros Or The Erotic In Our Classrooms. Trained In The Philosophical Context Of Western Metaphysical Dualism, Many Of Us Have Accepted The Notion That There Is A Split Between The Body And The Mind. Believing This, Individuals Enter The Classroom To Teach As Though Only The Mind Is Present, And Not The Body.

To Return To Love, To Get The Love We Always Wanted But Never Had, To Have The Love We Want But Are Not Prepared To Give, We Seek Romantic Relationships. We Believe These Relationships, More Than Any Other, Will Rescue And Redeem Us. True Love Does Have The Power To Redeem But Only If We Are Ready For Redemption. Love Saves Us Only If We Want To Be Saved.

Whenever Domination Is Present, Love Is Lacking.

A Central Tenet Of Modern Feminist Thought Has Been The Assertion That "all Women Are Oppressed." This Assertion Implies That Women Share A Common Lot, That Factors Like Class, Race, Religion, Sexual Preference, Etc. Do Not Create A Diversity Of Experience That Determines The Extent To Which Sexism Will Be An Oppressive Force In The Lives Of Individual Women.

I Can Be Critical Of Beyoncé And Yet Also Appreciate Aspects Of Her Power And Representation. I Can Especially Critique The Way White Supremacist Aesthetics More Often Than Not Informs Her Presentation Of Self And Yet Still Acknowledge Her Beauty.

Whether We Learn How To Love Ourselves And Others Will Depend On The Presence Of A Loving Environment. Self-love Cannot Flourish In Isolation.

Assumptions That Racism Is More Oppressive To Black Men Than Black Women, Then And Now ... Based On Acceptance Of Patriarchal Notions Of Masculinity.

We Must Continually Remind Students In The Classroom That Expression Of Different Opinions And Dissenting Ideas Affirms The Intellectual Process. We Should Forcefully Explain That Our Role Is Not To Teach Them To Think As We Do But Rather To Teach Them, By Example, The Importance Of Taking A Stance That Is Rooted In Rigorous Engagement With The Full Range Of Ideas About A Topic.

No Black Woman Writer In This Culture Can Write "too Much". Indeed, No Woman Writer Can Write "too Much"...no Woman Has Ever Written Enough.

... We Need To Interrogate "reverence," For Idolization Can Be Another Way One Is Objectified And Not Really Taken Seriously.

The One Person Who Will Never Leave Us, Whom We Will Never Lose, Is Ourself. Learning To Love Our Female Selves Is Where Our Search For Love Must Begin.

Searching For Love

I Think This Is Often Misunderstood In The West, Where People Feel That There Can Be No Justice Unless Everything Is The Same. This Is Part Of Why I Feel We Have To Relearn How We Think About Love, Because We Think About Love So Much In Terms Of The Self.

America Is A Country That Would Rather Talk About Race Than Class.

Sadly, Anarchy Has Gotten Such A Bad Name. We Don't Really See Much Evidence Of It Because People Associate It With Reckless Abandon.

I Will Not Have My Life Narrowed Down. I Will Not Bow Down To Somebody Else's Whim Or To Someone Else's Ignorance.

Radical Militant Feminist Believes That Women Of Color And Black Women In Particular Have Written The Cutting Edge Theory And Really Were The Individuals Who Exploded Feminist Theory Into The Directions That Has Made It More Powerful. So I See Us As The Leaders Not Just Of Black People And Black Women In Terms Of Feminism But In Terms Of The Movement As A Whole.

While It Has Become “cool” For White Folks To Hang Out With Black People And Express Pleasure In Black Culture, Most White People Do Not Feel That This Pleasure Should Be Linked To Unlearning Racism.

When We Face Pain In Relationships Our First Response Is Often To Sever Bonds Rather Than To Maintain Commitment.

Feminist Politics Aims To End Domination, To Free Us To Be Who We Are - To Live Lives Where We Love Justice, Where We Can Live In Peace. Feminism Is For Everybody.

Commitment To Truth Telling Lays The Groundwork For The Openness And Honesty That Is The Heartbeat Of Love.

Imagine How Much Easier It Would Be For Us To Learn How To Love If We Began With A Shared Definition.

The Intellectual Tradition Of The West Is Very Individualistic. It's Not Community-based. The Intellectual Is Often Thought Of As A Person Who Is Alone And Cut Off From The World. So I Have Had To Practice Being Willing To Leave The Space Of My Study To Be In Community, To Work In Community, And To Be Changed By Community.

Shame Produces Trauma. Trauma Produces Paralysis.

Young People Are Cynical About Love. Ultimately, Cynicism Is The Great Mask Of The Disappointed And Betrayed Heart.

Black Women Control The World. We Are Through Being Discriminated Against.

As Females In A Patriarchal Culture, We Were Not Slaves Of Love; Most Of Us Were And Are Slaves Of Longing-- Yearning For A Master Who Will Set Us Free And Claim Us Because We Cannot Claim Ourselves

Death Is With You All The Time; You Get Deeper In It As You Move Towards It, But It's Not Unfamiliar To You. It's Always Been There, So What Becomes Unfamiliar To You When You Pass Away From The Moment Is Really Life.

Widespread Cultural Acceptance Of Lying Is A Primary Reason Many Of Us Will Never Know Love

Yearning Is The Word That Best Describes A Common Psychological State Shared By Many Of Us, Cutting Across Boundaries Of Race, Class, Gender, And Sexual Practice.

I Have Created A Life Style That Supports Contemplation, Service To Words.

One Of The Things I Find Most Exciting Is Talking With People Who Are Working With My Work. Who Are Using It In Some Way With Their Life To Address Everyday Politics Of Meaning.

Fluidity Means That Our Black Identities Are Constantly Changing As We Respond To Circumstances In Our Families And Communities Of Origin, And As We Interact With A Wider World.

Our Hearts Connect With Lots Of Folks In A Lifetime But Most Of Us Will Go To Our Graves With No Experience Of True Love.

One Of The Major Differences I See In The Political Climate Today Is That There Is Less Collective Support For Coming To Critical Consciousness – In Communities, In Institutions, Among Friends.

I Think The Invitation Offered The Non-black Reader Is To Join Us In This Expression Of Our Familiarity And Via That Joining, Come To Understand That When Black People Come Together To Celebrate And Rejoice In Black Critical Thinking, We Do So Not To Exclude Or To Separate, But To Participate More Fully In World Community. However, We Must First Be Able To Dialogue With One Another, To Give One Another Subject-to-subject Recognition That Is An Act Of Resistance That Is Part Of The Decolonizing, Anti-racist Process.

I Think Part Of Western Metaphysical Dualism Is, We're Always Being Asked To Choose One Over The Other.

Most Of Us Find It Difficult To Accept A Definition Of Love That Says We Are Never Loved In A Context Where There Is Abuse.

Definition Of Love

I Do Get A Little Pissed At People Who Write Me And Want Me To Do Things, And Spell My Name Wrong.

We Fear That Evaluating Our Needs And Then Carefully Choosing Partners Will Reveal That There Is No One For Us To Love. Most Of Us Prefer To Have A Partner Who Is Lacking Than No Partner At All. What Becomes Apparent Is That We May Be More Interested In Finding A Partner Than In Knowing Love.

But Love Is Really More Of An Interactive Process. It's About What We Do Not Just What We Feel. It's A Verb, Not A Noun.

Isolation And Loneliness Are Central Causes Of Depression And Despair.

It Was The World Of Southern, Rural, Black Growing Up, Of Folks Sitting On Porches Day And Night, Of Folks Calling Your Mama, 'cause You Walked By And Didn't Speak, And Of The Switch Waiting When You Got Home So That You Could Be Taught Some Manners. It Was A World Of Single Black Older Women Schoolteachers, Dedicated, Tough; They Had Taught Your Mama, Her Sisters, And Her Friends. They Knew Your People In Ways That You Never Would And Shared Their Insight, Keeping Us In Touch With Generations. It Was A World Where We Had A History.

Part Of The Racialized Sexism Wants Everyone To Think That A 15-year Old Mexican Is Not A Girl, She’s A Woman. We Know She’s A Girl. We Can Never Emphasize This Enough, Because This Is The Fate Of Colored Girls Globally Right Now: The Denial Of Their Girlhood, The Denial Of Their Childhood, And The Constant State Of Risk And Danger They Are Living In.

Love Is First And Foremost Exemplified By Action - By Practice - Not Solely By Feeling.

Only Grown-ups Think That The Things Children Say Come Out Of Nowhere. We Know They Come From The Deepest Parts Of Ourselves.

If You're In A Domestic Situation Where The Man Is Violent, Patriarchy And Male Domination - Even Though You Understand It Intersectionally - You Focus, You Highlight That Dimension Of It, If That's What Is Needed To Change The Situation.

It Is Poetry That Changes Everything.

What's So Amazing About This Historical Moment Is That It Is Bringing Class To The Fore And We Have To Think About The Nature Of Work And Hierarchy.

As Long As Women Are Using Class Or Race Power To Dominate Other Women, Feminist Sisterhood Cannot Be Fully Realized.

All Efforts At Self-transformation Challenge Us To Engage In On-going, Critical Self-examination And Reflection About Feminist Practice, And About How We Live In The World. This Individual Commitment, When Coupled With Engagement In Collective Discussion, Provides A Space For Critical Feedback Which Strengthens Our Efforts To Change And Make Ourselves Anew.

There Is No Life To Be Found In Violence. Every Act Of Violence Brings Us Closer To Death. Whether It's The Mundane Violence We Do To Our Bodies By Overeating Toxic Food Or Drink Or The Extreme Violence Of Child Abuse, Domestic Warfare, Life-threatening Poverty, Addiction, Or State Terrorism.

The Function Of Art Is To Do More Than Tell It Like It Is-it’s To Imagine What Is Possible.

I Write These Words To Bear Witness To The Primacy Of Resistance Struggle In Any Situation Of Domination (even Within Family Life); To The Strength And Power That Emerges From Sustained Resistance And The Profound Conviction That These Forces Can Be Healing, Can Protect Us From Dehumanization And Despair.

Teaching Black Studies, I Find That Students Are Quick To Label A Black Person Who Has Grown Up In A Predominantly White Setting And Attended Similar Schools As "not Black Enough." ...our Concept Of Black Experience Has Been Too Narrow And Constricting.

Living Simply Makes Loving Simple.

I Mostly Want To Remind Her Of The Recipes Of Healing, And Give Her My Own Made-on-the Spot Remedy For The Easing Of Her Pain. I Tell Her, “get A Pen. Stop Crying So You Can Write This Down And Start Working On It Tonight.” My Remedy Is Long. But The Last Item On The List Says: “when You Wake Up And Find Yourself Living Someplace Where There Is Nobody You Love And Trust, No Community, It Is Time To Leave Town – To Pack Up And Go (you Can Even Go Tonight). And Where You Need To Go Is Any Place Where There Are Arms That Can Hold You, That Will Not Let You Go.

I Don't Have Issues Around How I'm Identified.

The Wounded Child Inside Many Females Is A Girl Who Was Taught From Early Childhood On That She Must Become Something Other Than Herself, Deny Her True Feelings, In Order To Attract And Please Others.

The Struggle To End Sexist Oppression That Focuses On Destroying The Cultural Basis For Such Domination Strengthens Other Liberation Struggles. Individuals Who Fight For The Eradication Of Sexism Without Struggles To End Racism Or Classism Undermine Their Own Efforts. Individuals Who Fight For The Eradication Of Racism Or Classism While Supporting Sexist Oppression Are Helping To Maintain The Cultural Basis Of All Forms Of Group Oppression.

I'm Tired Of The Naked, Raped, Beaten Black Woman Body. I Want To See An Image Of Black Femaleness That Alters Our Universe In Some Way.

Any Woman Who Wishes To Be An Intellectual, To Write Non-fiction, To Deal With Theory, Faces A Lot Of Discrimination Coming Her Way And Perhaps Even Self-doubt Because There Aren't That Many Who've Gone Before You. And I Think That The Most Powerful Tool We Can Have Is To Be Clear About Our Intent. To Know What It Is We Want To Do Rather Than Going Into Institutions Thinking That The Institution Is Going To Frame For Us.

The Political Core Of Any Movement For Freedom In The Society Has To Have The Political Imperative To Protect Free Speech.

We Know That So Much Of The War That Is Happening Is The Attempt Of One Group To Snatch The Resources Of Another Group.

I Think Our Culture Doesn't Recognize Passion, Because Real Passion Has The Power To Disrupt Boundaries.

White Women And Black Men Have It Both Ways. They Can Act As Oppressor Or ... And Oppression Of Others.

If Black Women Stand Strong And Our Commitment Is To Ending Domination I Know That I'm Supporting Black Males, Black Children Male And Female Black Elderly Because The Bottom Line Is The Struggle To End Domination In All Its Forms.

The White Worker Who Has Been Displaced At General Motors Has More In Common With The Displaced Black Worker Than Those Larger White Ceo's, And Those Wall Street People Who Are Determining Their Fate... Whose Thievery And Greed Is Determining Their Fate.

It's Interesting--the Way In Which One Has To Balance Life--because You Have To Know When To Let Go And When To Pull Back.... There's Always Some Liminal (as Opposed To Subliminal) Space In Between Which Is Harder To Inhabit Because It Never Feels As Safe As Moving From One Extreme To Another.

Feminist Education — The Feminist Classroom — Is And Should Be A Place Where There Is A Sense Of Struggle, Where There Is Visible Acknowledgment Of The Union Of Theory And Practice, Where We Work Together As Teachers And Students To Overcome The Estrangement And Alienation That Have Become So Much The Norm In The Contemporary University.

Any Black Person Who Clings To The Misguided Notion That White People Represent The Embodiment Of All That Is Evil And Black People All That Is Good Remains Wedded To The Very Logic Of Western Metaphysical Dualism That Is The Heart Of Racist Binary Thinking. Such Thinking Is Not Liberatory. Like The Racist Educational Ideology It Mirrors And Imitates, It Invites A Closing Of The Mind.

It Is Crucial For The Future Of The Black Liberation Struggle That We Remain Ever Mindful That Ours Is A Shared Struggle, That We Are Each Other's Fate.

Black Males Who Refuse Categorization Are Rare, For The Price Of Visibility In The Contemporary World Of White Supremacy Is That Black Identity Be Defined In Relation To The Stereotype Whether By Embodying It Or Seeking To Be Other Than It…negative Stereotypes About The Nature Of Black Masculinity Continue To Overdetermine The Identities Black Males Are Allowed To Fashion For Themselves.

Feminism Is The Struggle To End Sexist Oppression. Its Aim Is Not To Benefit Solely Any Specific Group Of Women, Any Particular Race Or Class Of Women. It Does Not Privilege Women Over Men. It Has The Power To Transform Meaningfully All Our Lives

...move From Emphasis On Personal Lifestyle Issues Toward Creating Political Paradigms And Radical Models Of Social Change That Emphasize Collective As Well As Individual Change.

I Celebrate Teaching That Enables Transgressions - A Movement Against And Beyond Boundaries. It Is That Movement Which Makes Education The Practice Of Freedom.

I Think It's Crazy For Us To Think That People Don't Understand What's Being Foregrounded In Their Lives At A Given Point In Time.

It Is Important And Vital Is To Keep That Education For Critical Consciousness Around Intersectionalities, So That People Are Able To Not Focus On One Thing And Blame One Group, But Be Able To Look Holistically At The Way Intersectionality Informs All Of Us: Whiteness, Gender, Sexual Preferences, Etc. Only Then Can We Have A Realistic Handle On The Political And Cultural World We Live Within.

Within The New Self-help Books For Women, Patriarachy And Male Domination Are Rarely Identified As Forces That Lead To The Oppression, Exploitation, And Domination Of Women. Instead, These Books Suggest That Individual Relationships Between Men And Women Can Be Changed Solely By Women Making The Right Choices.

[o]ne Of The Most Vital Ways We Sustain Ourselves Is By Building Communities Of Resistance, Places Where We Know We Are Not Alone.

We Have To Look At The Substance Of Something Rather Than The Shadow.

Today Masses Of Black Women In The U.s. Refuse To Acknowledge That They Have Much To Gain By Feminist Struggle. They Fear Feminism. They Have Stood In Place So Long That They Are Afraid To Move. They Fear Change. They Fear Losing What Little They Have.

In 2014, When Hillary Clinton Was Not Yet Running For President, I Stated That I Was Not In Agreement With Her Politics. More Recently, When Asked My Thoughts About Hillary Clinton During A Public Conversation With Gloria Steinem, I Stated, "she Embodies The Very Best Of Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy, But That Doesn't Mean That We Shouldn't Vote For Her."

Like Many White Liberals, Ken Sees The Whiteness Of His Social Life As More An Accident Of Circumstance Than A Choice. He Would Welcome Greater Diversity In The Neighbourhood. However, He Does Not Consciously Do Enough Work Either In His Social Life Or In The Larger Community To Make That Diversity Possible.

Sadly, Children's Passion For Thinking Often Ends When They Encounter A World That Seeks To Educate Them For Conformity And Obedience Only.

Self-love Is The Foundation Of Our Loving Practice. Without It Our Other Efforts To Love Fail. Giving Ourselves Love We Provide Our Inner Being With The Opportunity To Have The Unconditional Love We May Have Always Longed To Receive From Someone Else.

I Think Stress Is Anything Going On In Our Lives That Impinges On Our Capacity To Have Optimum Well Being.

What We Do Is More Important Than What We Say Or What We Say We Believe.

The Soul Of Our Politics Is The Commitment To Ending Domination.

To Begin By Always Thinking Of Love As An Action Rather Than A Feeling Is One Way In Which Anyone Using The Word In This Manner Automatically Assumes Accountability And Responsibility.

Since Loving Is About Knowing, We Have More Meaningful Love Relationships When We Know Each Other And It Takes Time To Know Each Other.

Love Relationship

Choosing To Be Honest Is The First Step In The Process Of Love. There Is No Practitioner Of Love Who Deceives. Once The Choice Has Been Made To Be Honest, Then The Next Step On Love's Path Is Communication.

Another Response To Racism Has Been The Establishment Of Unlearning Racism Workshops, Which Are Often Led By White Women. These Workshops Are Important, Yet They Tend To Focus Primarily On Cathartic Individual Psychological Personal Prejudice Without Stressing The Need For Corresponding Change In Political Commitment And Action. A Woman Who Attends An Unlearning Racism Workshop And Learns To Acknowledge That She Is Racist Is No Less A Threat Than One Who Does Not. Acknowledgment Of Racism Is Significant When It Leads To Transformation.

To Live Fixated On The Future Is To Engage In Psychological Denial. It Is A Form Of Psychic Violence That Prepares Us To Accept The Violence Needed To Ensure The Maintenance Of Imperialist, Future-oriented Society.

Sometimes People Try To Destroy You, Precisely Because They Recognize Your Power - Not Because They Don't See It, But Because They See It And They Don't Want It To Exist.

The Fact Is That It Was Bourgeois White Feminism That I Was Reacting Against When I Stood In My First Women's Studies Classes And Said, "black Women Have Always Worked."

Beloved Community Is Formed Not By The Eradication Of Difference But By Its Affirmation, By Each Of Us Claiming The Identities And Cultural Legacies That Shape Who We Are And How We Live In The World.

Beloved Community

Women Have Endeavored To Guide Men To Love Because Patriarchal Thinking Has Sanctioned This Work Even As It Has Undermined It By Teaching Men To Refuse Guidance...a Useful Gift All Love's Practitioners Can Give Is The Offering Of Forgiveness. It Not Only Allows Us To Move Away From Blame, From Seeing Others As The Cause Of Our Sustained Lovelessness, But It Enables Us To Experience Agency, To Know We Can Be Responsible For Giving And Finding Love.

The Most Basic Activism We Can Have In Our Lives Is To Live Consciously In A Nation Living In Fantasies. Living Consciously Is Living With A Core Of Healthy Self-esteem. You Will Face Reality, You Will Not Delude Yourself.

Feminism As A Political Movement Has To Specifically Address The Needs Of Men In Their Struggle To Revolutionize Their Consciousness.

The Practice Of Love Is The Most Powerful Antidote To The Politics Of Domination.

I Think I Was Always Obsessed With Esthetics.

Like Desire, Language Disrupts, Refuses To Be Contained Within Boundaries.

Writing And Performing Should Deepen The Meaning Of Words, Should Illuminate, Transfix And Transform.

Honesty And Openness Is Always The Foundation Of Insightful Dialogue.

Changing How We See Images Is Clearly One Way To Change The World.

Changing The World

My Students Tell Me, We Don't Want To Love! We're Tired Of Being Loving! And I Say To Them, If You're Tired Of Being Loving, Then You Haven't Really Been Loving, Because When You Are Loving You Have More Strength.

I Often Find It Easier To Be Teaching Or Giving To Others, And Often Struggle With The Place Of My Own Pleasure And Joy.

I Began Writing A Book On Love Because I Felt That The United States Is Moving Away From Love.

It Is Necessary To Remember, As We Think Critically About Domination, That We All Have The Capacity To Act In Ways That Oppress, Dominate, Wound (whether Or Not That Power Is Institutionalized). It Is Necessary To Remember That It Is First The Potential Oppressor Within That We Must Resist – The Potential Victim Within That We Must Rescue – Otherwise We Cannot Hope For An End To Domination, For Liberation.

To Teach In A Manner That Respects And Cares For The Souls Of Our Students Is Essential If We Are To Provide The Necessary Conditions Where Learning Can Most Deeply And Intimately Begin.

If You Do Not Know What You Feel, Then It Is Difficult To Choose Love; It Is Better To Fall. Then You Do Not Have To Be Responsible For Your Actions.

The Fierce Willingness To Repudiate Domination In A Holistic Manner Is The Starting Point For Progressive Cultural Revolution.

Popular Escapist Fiction Enchants Adult Readers Without Challenging Them To Be Educated For Critical Consciousness.

What's Really Sad Is That So Many Young Women Between The Ages Of 16 And 25 Are Ignorant And They Already Believe That Women Get The Same Pay As Men. They Don't Even Really Understand That Equality Hasn't Happened With The Pay Force.

Patriarchy, Like Any System Of Domination (for Example, Racism), Relies On Socializing Everyone To Believe That In All Human Relations There Is An Inferior And A Superior Party, One Person Is Strong, The Other Weak, And That It Is Therefore Natural For The Powerful To Rule Over The Powerless. To Those Who Support Patriarchal Thinking, Maintaining Power And Control Is Acceptable By Whatever Means.

Women Are Often Belittled For Trying To Resurrect These Men And Bring Them Back To Life And To Love. They Are In A World That Would Be Even More Alienated And Violent If Caring Women Did Not Do The Work Of Teaching Men Who Have Lost Touch With Themselves How To Love Again. This Labor Of Love Is Futile Only When The Men In Question Refuse To Awaken, Refuse Growth. At This Point It Is A Gesture Of Self-love For Women To Break Their Commitment And Move On.

This Fear Of Maleness That They Inspire Estranges Men From Every Female In Their Lives To Greater Or Lesser Degrees, And Men Feel The Loss. Ultimately, One Of The Emotional Costs Of Allegiance To Patriarchy Is To Be Seen As Unworthy Of Trust. If Women And Girls In Patriarchal Culture Are Taught To See Every Male, Including The Males With Whom We Are Intimate, As Potential Rapists And Murderers, Then We Cannot Offer Them Our Trust, And Without Trust There Is No Love.

Hope Is Essential To Any Political Struggle For Radical Change When The Overall Social Climate Promotes Disillusionment And Despair.

I Entered The Classroom With The Conviction That It Was Crucial For Me And Every Other Student To Be An Active Participant, Not A Passive Consumer...education As The Practice Of Freedom.... Education That Connects The Will To Know With The Will To Become. Learning Is A Place Where Paradise Can Be Created.

We Live In A World With Serious Class Complexes. It Is One Thing To Be A College Student With Loan Debts And Another Thing To Be Just Dirt Poor For Your Entire Life. The Challenge Is To Come Up With More Complex Understandings Of Where We Are, More Global Awareness Of What Connects Americans With What Is Happening With Suffering And Oppressed People All Around The World.

To Be Changed By Ideas Was Pure Pleasure. But To Learn Ideas That Ran Counter To Values And Beliefs Learned At Home Was To Place Oneself At Risk, To Enter The Danger Zone. Home Was The Place Where I Was Forced To Conform To Someone Else’s Image Of Who And What I Should Be. School Was The Place Where I Could Forget That Self And, Through Ideas, Reinvent Myself.

One Of The Most Subversive Institutions In The United States Is The Public Library.

Since The Notion That We Should All Forsake Attachment To Race And/or Cultural Identity And Be “just Humans” Within The Framework Of White Supremacy Has Usually Meant That Subordinate Groups Must Surrender Their Identities, Beliefs, Values, And Assimilate By Adopting The Values And Beliefs Of Privileged-class Whites, Rather Than Promoting Racial Harmony This Thinking Has Created A Fierce Cultural Protectionism.

Few People Who Are Hit Once By Someone They Love Respond In The Way They Might To A Singular Physical Assault By A Stranger.

My Hope Emerges From Those Places Of Struggle Where I Witness Individuals Positively Transforming Their Lives And The World Around Them. Educating Is A Vocation Rooted In Hopefulness. As Teachers We Believe That Learning Is Possible, That Nothing Can Keep An Open Mind From Seeking After Knowledge And Finding A Way To Know.

To Counter The Fixation On A Rhetoric Of Victimhood, Black Folks Must Engage In A Discourse Of Self-determination.

Clearly, Commitment Is A Necessary Component For Creating Loving Relationships.

Loving Relationships

If We Give Our Children Sound Self-love, They Will Be Able To Deal With Whatever Life Puts Before Them.

As We Search As A Nation For Constructive Ways To Challenge Racism And White Supremacy, It Is Absolutely Essential That Progressive Female Voices Gain A Hearing.

To Love Well Is The Task In All Meaningful Relationships, Not Just Romantic Bonds.

Meaningful Relationship

There Is Light In Darkness, You Just Have To Find It.

Knowing How To Be Solitary Is Central To The Art Of Loving. When We Can Be Alone, We Can Be With Others Without Using Them As A Means Of Escape.

The Academy Is Not Paradise. But Learning Is A Place Where Paradise Can Be Created.

Some People Act As Though Art That Is For A Mass Audience Is Not Good Art, And I Think This Has Been A Very Negative Thing. I Know That I Have Wanted Very Much To Write Books That Are Accessible To The Widest Audience Possible.

The Rage Of The Oppressed Is Never The Same As The Rage Of The Privileged.

Schools For Love Do Not Exist. Everyone Assumes That We Will Know How To Love Instinctively. Despite Overwhelming Evidence To The Contrary, We Still Accept That The Family Is The Primary School For Love. Those Of Us Who Do Not Learn How To Love Among Family Are Expected To Experience Love In Romantic Relationships. However This Love Often Eludes Us.

The World Would Be A Paradise Of Peace And Justice If Global Citizens Shared A Common Definition Of Love Which Would Guide Our Thoughts And Action.

When Men And Women Punish Each Other For Truth Telling, We Reinforce The Notion That Lies Are Better.

Telling The Truth

A Generous Heart Is Always Open, Always Ready To Receive Our Going And Coming. In The Midst Of Such Love We Need Never Fear Abandonment. This Is The Most Precious Gift True Love Offers - The Experience Of Knowing We Always Belong.

For Me, Forgiveness And Compassion Are Always Linked: How Do We Hold People Accountable For Wrongdoing And Yet At The Same Time Remain In Touch With Their Humanity Enough To Believe In Their Capacity To Be Transformed?

Justice Demands Integrity. It’s To Have A Moral Universe — Not Only Know What Is Right Or Wrong But To Put Things In Perspective, Weigh Things. Justice Is Different From Violence And Retribution; It Requires Complex Accounting.

Shaming Is One Of The Deepest Tools Of Imperialist, White Supremacist, Capitalist Patriarchy Because Shame Produces Trauma And Trauma Often Produces Paralysis.

When Angels Speak Of Love They Tell Us It Is Only By Loving That We Enter An Earthly Paradise. They Tell Us Paradise Is Our Home And Love Our True Destiny.

Representation Is A Crucial Location Of Struggle For Any Exploited And Oppressed People Asserting Subjectivity And Decolonization Of The Mind.

In Patriarchal Culture Men Are Especially Inclined To See Love As Something They Should Receive Without Expending Effort. More Often Than Not They Do Not Want To Do The Work That Love Demands. When The Practice Of Love Invites Us To Enter A Place Of Potential Bliss That Is At The Same Time A Place Of Critical Awakening And Pain, Many Of Us Turn Our Backs On Love.

Being Oppressed Means The Absence Of Choices

If Only One Party In The Relationship Is Working To Create Love, To Create The Space Of Emotional Connection, The Dominator Model Remains In Place And The Relationship Just Becomes A Site For Continuous Power Struggle.

The Power Of Patriarchy Has Been To Make Maleness Feared And To Make Men Feel That It Is Better To Be Feared That To Be Loved. Whether They Can Confess This Or Not, Men Know That Just Is Not True.

It's Really Important To Have Life Strategies And Part Of That Is Sort Of Knowing Where You Want To Go So You Can Have A Map That Helps You To Get There. And The Traditional Way Tells Us Oh We Get Into School And Someone Else Advises Us, Helps Us, But That Often Does Not Work For African Americans Female And Male. Because What Works For The Dominant Culture Often Does Not Work For Us.

African American

Sexism Has Never Rendered Women Powerless. It Has Either Suppressed Their Strength Or Exploited It.

If I Were Really Asked To Define Myself, I Wouldn’t Start With Race; I Wouldn’t Start With Blackness; I Wouldn’t Start With Gender; I Wouldn’t Start With Feminism. I Would Start With Stripping Down To What Fundamentally Informs My Life, Which Is That I’m A Seeker On The Path. I Think Of Feminism, And I Think Of Anti-racist Struggles As Part Of It. But Where I Stand Spiritually Is, Steadfastly, On A Path About Love.

No Other Group In America Has So Had Their Identity Socialized Out Of Existence As Have Black Women... When Black People Are Talked About The Focus Tends To Be On Black Men; And When Women Are Talked About The Focus Tends To Be On White Women.

The Notion That Black Folks Have Nothing To Learn From Scholarship That May Reflect Racial Or Racist Biases Is Dangerous. It Promotes Closed-mindedness And A Narrow Understanding Of Knowledge To Hold That "race" Is Such An Overwhelming Concept That It Negates The Validity Of Any Insights Contained In A Work That May Have Some Racist Or Sexist Aspects.

To Be Truly Visionary We Have To Root Our Imagination In Our Concrete Reality While Simultaneously Imagining Possibilities Beyond That Reality.

Both Men And Women Remain In Dysfunctional, Loveless Relationships When It Is Materially Opportune.

We Don't Really Live In A Culture That Loves Boys Or Loves Children, And We Don't Encourage Boys To Be Whole.

Time And Time Again When I Talk To Individuals About Approaching Love With Will And Intentionality, I Hear The Fear Expressed That This Will Bring An End To Romance. This Is Simply Not So. Approaching Romantic Love From Foundation Of Care, Knowledge, And Respect Actually Intensifies Romance

To Indoctrinate Boys Into The Rules Of Patriarchy, We Force Them To Feel Pain And To Deny Their Feelings.

It's Interesting To Look At All The Aspects Where Everyday Americans, Many Of Whom Are Not College Educated, Are Thinking Deeply Now About Our Economic Structure.

Our Freedom Is Sweet. It Will Be Sweeter When We Are All Free.

Do Not Expect To Receive The Love From Someone Else You Do Not Give Yourself.

Feminism As A Theoretical Enterprise Is Approached Differently By Black Women Depending On Where We Are. There Are More Reformist Black Women Who Tend To Use The Phrase "black Feminism".

Even The Wealthiest Professional Woman Can Be "brought Down" By Being In A Relationship Where She Longs To Be Loved And Is Consistently Lied To. To The Degree That She Trusts Her Male Companion, Lying And Other Forms Of Betrayal Will Most Likely Shatter Her Self-confidence And Self-esteem.

I Am Passionate About Everything In My Life--first And Foremost, Passionate About Ideas. And That's A Dangerous Person To Be In This Society, Not Just Because I'm A Woman, But Because It's Such A Fundamentally Anti-intellectual, Anti-critical Thinking Society. --bell Hooks

Dare I Speak ,to Oppressed And Opressor In The Same Voice? Dare I Speak To You In A Language That Will Move Beyond The Boundaries Of Domination- A Language, That Will Not Bind You, Fence You In, Or Hold You? Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle. The Oppressed Struggle In Language To Recover Ourselves, To Reconcile, To Reunite, To Renew. Our Words Are Not Without Meaning, They Are An Action, A Resistance. Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle.

Right Now, For Many Americans, Class Is Being Foregrounded Like Never Before Because Of The Economic Situation. It Doesn't Mean That Race Doesn't Matter, Or Gender Doesn't Matter, But It Means That Right Now In Many People's Lives, In The Lives Of My Own Family Members, People Are Losing Jobs, Insurance.

Knowledge Rooted In Experience Shapes What We Value And As A Consequence How We Know What We Know As Well As How We Use What We Know.

We Judge On The Basis Of What Somebody Looks Like, Skin Color, Whether We Think They're Beautiful Or Not. That Space On The Internet Allows You To Converse With Somebody With None Of Those Things Involved.

All Too Often We Think Of Community In Terms Of Being With Folks Like Ourselves: The Same Class, Same Race, Same Ethnicity, Same Social Standing And The Like..i Think We Need To Be Wary: We Need To Work Against The Danger Of Evoking Something That We Don’t Challenge Ourselves To Actually Practice.

What Had Begun As A Movement To Free All Black People From Racist Oppression Became A Movement With Its Primary Goal The Establishment Of Black Male Patriarchy.

The Practice Of Love Offers No Place Of Safety. We Risk Loss, Hurt, Pain. We Risk Being Acted Upon By Forces Outside Our Control.

Part Of The Heart Of Anarchy Is, Dare To Go Against The Grain Of The Conventional Ways Of Thinking About Our Realities. Anarchists Have Always Gone Against The Grain, And That's Been A Place Of Hope.

We Have To Constantly Critique Imperialist White Supremacist Patriarchal Culture Because It Is Normalized By Mass Media And Rendered Unproblematic.

True Resistance Begins With People Confronting Pain... And Wanting To Do Something To Change It.

... Privacy Is ... Connected To A Politics Of Domination.

When We Only Name The Problem, When We State Complaint Without A Constructive Focus Or Resolution, We Take Hope Away. In This Way Critique Can Become Merely An Expression Of Profound Cynicism, Which Then Works To Sustain Dominator Culture.

I Feel That My Environment Reflects My Belief In The Grace And Art And Elegance Of Living Simply.

Feminism Has Never Emerged From The Women Who Are Most Victimized By Sexist Oppression; Women Who Are Daily Beaten Down, Mentally, Physically, And Spiritually - Women Who Are Powerless To Change Their Condition In Life. They Are A Silent Majority.

Love Is A Combination Of Care, Commitment, Knowledge, Responsibility, Respect And Trust.

This Rule Of Silence Is Upheld When The Culture Refuses Everyone Easy Access Even To The Word “patriarchy.” Most Children Do Not Learn What To Call This System Of Institutionaliz Ed Gender Roles, So Rarely Do We Name It In Everyday Speech. This Silence Promotes Denial. And How Can We Organize To Challenge And Change A System That Cannot Be Named?

The Wounded Heart Learns Self-love By First Overcoming Low Self-esteem.

When Liberal Whites Fail To Understand How They Can And/or Do Embody White Supremacist Values And Beliefs Even Though They May Not Embrace Racism As Prejudice Or Domination (especially Domination That Involves Coercive Control), They Cannot Recognize The Ways Their Actions Support And Affirm The Very Structure Of Racist Domination And Oppression That They Wish To See Eradicated.

Of All The Definitions Of Love That Abound In Our Universe, A Special Favorite Of Mine Is... “the Will To Extend One's Self For The Purpose Of Nurturing One's Own Or Another's Spiritual Growth.”

I Think The Women's Movement Has Had A Major Impact On Everybody's Lives In Our Nation And In The World As A Whole.

To Truly Love We Must Learn To Mix Various Ingredients - Care, Affection, Recognition, Respect, Commitment, And Trust, As Well As Honest And Open Communication.

In Order For Me To Engage In A Revolutionary Struggle For Collective Black Self-determination, I Have To Engage Feminism Because That Becomes The Vehicle By Which I Project Myself As A Female Into The Heart Of The Struggle, But The Heart Of The Struggle Does Not Begin With Feminism. It Begins With An Understanding Of Domination And With A Critique Of Domination In All Its Forms.

When The Feminist Movement Was At Its Zenith In The Late 60's And Early 70's, There Was A Lot Of Moving Away From The Idea Of The Person. It Was: Let's Talk About The Ideas Behind The Work, And The People Matter Less. It Was Kind Of A Gimmicky Thing, But Lots Of Feminist Women Were Doing It. Many Of Us Took The Names Of Our Female Ancestors - Bell Hooks Is My Maternal Great Grandmother - To Honor Them And Debunk The Notion That We Were These Unique, Exceptional Women. We Wanted To Say, Actually, We Were The Products Of The Women Who'd Gone Before Us.

I See Myself, In Terms Of The Question Of Capitalism, As I Would Support Democratic Socialism Over A Capitalist System, Because Any Approach... Or Participatory Economics, Which Is Another Great Model That People Like Michael Albert Are Putting Out There... Any System That Encourages Us To Think About Interdependency, And To Be Able To Use The World's Resources In A Wiser Way, For The Good Of The Whole, Would Be Better For The World Than Capitalism.

Democratic Socialism

I Think This Is What People Misunderstand About Martin Luther King Saying To Love Your Enemies. They Think He Was Just Using This Silly Little Phrase, But What He Meant Was That As Black Americans We Need To Let Our Anger Go, Because Holding On To It We Hold Ourselves Down. We Oppress Ourselves By Holding On To Anger.

Spirituality And Spiritual Life Give Us The Strength To Love.

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Theodore Isaac Rubin

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